Collaborating on Blackboard

Blackboard themes

“I have changed the look and feel of Blackboard to make it easier for me to find my way around, read course titles and find documents.  I set it up how I like it and then you can personalise your page (top right of the menus). I chose the forest theme because I found it had quite subtle shades and it was easy to see and use and it wasn’t too stark.  Then you click on submit at the bottom of the page, and it puts it all into place for you. But then I was working with someone who did not like my colours so I used the Internet Options in Internet Explorer to quickly make it easier for her to read content with a blue background.”  (High Contrast mode is also available through the My Places menu on Blackboard)

blue colour background for Blackboard

Sarah – nursing

iSoton app for bus timetable, campus map and lecture timetable.

soton iPhone app“I use the free university iPhone bus timetable and map app when I am in a hurry and need to find my way about.  It also has my timetable and modules.”

Nicole  – Engineering

Dim screen for note taking in lectures

“A problem of using a laptop in class can be the light given off by the laptop’s display. I found sitting at the back of the class stopped a lot of this unwanted attention, but this also had the disadvantage that you might not be able to see/hear what the lecturer was saying. Instead, I found a simple remedy which is free. 99% of laptops have the ability to dim the screen’s brightness, either by using the function keys (FN + F6 & F7 on some laptops) or from the graphics display properties available in control panel – under the display settings. Some laptops also offer dimming as part of the Power options in Windows.

Dim laptop screen

Dim laptop screen

By dimming the screen you will reduce glare – reducing eyestrain, reduce unwanted attention and will also save your laptops batteries from being drained – advantages all round!”

Jim –  Information Technology in Organisations

ZoomText magnification with screen reading.

“I use Zoomtext a lot for reading and assignments when the screen reader is the most useful thing. I use the printer and scanner, although now I do not use the scanner so much as most of it is on line – I have large fonts and mouse pointer but usually read things with a screen reader as it saves my eyes.”
Amber – Nursing

YouTube Video link to  ZoomText Tips and Tricks #10 – Using the SpeakIt Tool

You can personalise your mouse pointer in Zoomtext and there are several free downloads such as ‘Philip’s Large Coloured Cursors‘ that allow you use a colour and size of pointer that makes it easier to see and Dolphin Computer Access offer Windows High Visibility Mouse Pointers.

Access ebooks from libraries with Kobo Reader

Kobo reader“I have discovered that the Kobo e-reader can open protected (DRM’d) epubs from libraries.  They are synced by connecting the device to a PC with Adobe Digital Editions installed.  But as far as I know it has no TTS.”

The Kobo wifi has adjustable fonts and views but these can depend on the book that has been downloaded.

Using the free Calibre ebook management service is another alternative when documents need to be converted to an accessible format

Neil – Psychology

Using Ctrl+F or Command +F to find things – keyboard shortcuts.

search in PDF

search Wikipedia page“I would find that when I am reading poilicies which have so much text to read, I go to the  summary and then use the find and just go to the specific bit. If you know you need a specific item such as ‘consent’ – then use Ctrl +F [Command +F], add the word to the search box and find it directly.”

Amber – nursing.

Crazy: 90 Percent of People Don’t Know How to Use CTRL+F

This week, I talked with Dan Russell, a search anthropologist at Google, about the time he spends with random people studying how they search for stuff. One statistic blew my mind. 90 percent of people in their studies don’t know how to use CTRL/Command + F to find a word in a document or web page! I probably use that trick 20 times per day and yet the vast majority of people don’t use it at all. (Alexis Madrigal)
 

Mac OS X keyboard shortcuts
Keyboard shortcuts for Windows